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Mansfield gave blood and sweat to reach the FA Cup fifth round for the first time in more than 50 years and reduced a desperate Burnley to tears. A stunning Louis Reed free-kick completed a hard-fought turnaround for the League One side against their labouring Premier League opponents.
There is little doubt that Burnley are getting relegated, leaving the Cup as their only hope of salvaging a desperate season, but they lacked quality from start to finish on another dispiriting day for Scott Parker. Mansfield were not necessarily the better side but Nigel Clough’s men worked harder, leaving the fans and players celebrating long after the game was over.
“The FA Cup’s always been a fantastic competition – for Mansfield Town to get into this position, it’s an incredible achievement,” said their first-team coach, Andy Garner. “This is very high in what we’ve achieved.”
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ShowJames Bree scored an extra-time winner to fire Southampton to a 2-1 FA Cup victory at home to their Championship rivals Leicester. Cyle Larin's penalty in first-half stoppage time put Saints on course for round five but Oliver Skipp's acrobatic equaliser early in the second half made it 1-1 at the end of normal time. Still, Southampton prevailed against the Foxes for the second time in five days, after Tuesday's 4-3 away win from 3-0 down at half-time.
Norwich booked their place in the fifth round as two late goals earned them a 3-1 win over West Brom at Carrow Road. With the game delicately poised at 1-1, after Josh Maja cancelled out Paris Maghoma's opener, the substitute Ben Chrisene produced a cracking finish to put the Canaries ahead with eight minutes of normal time remaining. The January signing Mo Toure then put the icing on the cake in stoppage time by adding his fifth goal in three games to leave Eric Ramsey still looking for his first win after seven matches in charge of Albion. PA Media
It felt like a new low in a season full of them for Burnley but a half-century high for the Stags. After the promise of a first win in 17 Premier League games against Crystal Palace in midweek, the goodwill that earned was lost at a frustrated Turf Moor. With relegation almost a certainty, taking the Cup seriously could have salvaged something amid the misery but it created more.
“Certainly when you come off the back of a result that we had in midweek, you probably dampen the noise around the place a little bit.” Parker said. “You come into this game wanting to get a result and keep that momentum and we’ve just applied that noise even more now, tenfold and rightly so.”
There were nine changes from Selhurst Park and Burnley never found a rhythm. It puts Parker’s role under scrutiny because the football is not worth watching and if they cannot get past a mid-table third tier side at home, then he might not be the long-term solution. The chair, Alan Pace, called for the fans’ “anger and frustration” to be turned into support, an indication not all is well at Turf Moor, with this result only increasing the upset.
Before the break, Burnley could have been out of sight. Ashley Barnes missed from close range and Loum Tchaouna lost all composure to fire over from inside the box but at least Josh Laurent gave the hosts the lead. It was a rare moment of quality on an afternoon of scrappy football. Lyle Foster and Tchaouna exchanged passes on the edge of the box, before Laurent put the goalkeeper on the floor and rolled the ball into an empty net.
Mansfield failed to threaten in the first half, offering endeavour but without possessing the necessary skill to cause the Burnley backline problems. They got the ball out to the wings with great regularity but the crosses invariably did not reach their targets. “We said: ‘You need to be better,’” Garner said, “‘because you haven’t done your jobs.’ That’s what we told them: ‘Just be a little bit better, put some more crosses in the box, test them, and we’ll see what happens.’ Sometimes the players do listen to you and actually do what you tell them to do.”
Things changed after the break as Burnley’s stumbling performance became an outright collapse. Hjalmar Ekdal fell over 30 yards from his own goal, allowing Oates to have a one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but he scooped the ball over the bar. It was not the finish Mansfield wanted but it was the first sign of hope.
Oates did not make the same mistake again. Kyle Knoyle found space on the right and sent a pinpoint cross to the back post, where the forward was waiting. He rose above Laurent, wanting to win the header more, leaving Max Weiss at a standstill, as the silence of a half-full Turf Moor was interrupted.
Mansfield were happy to turn the match into a battle, with Oates earning a war wound when Florentino Luís kicked him above the eye, to give away a free-kick 25 yards from goal. Reed stepped up and whipped the ball into the top corner for a first victory over a top-flight club since 1969. “As soon as it left my boot I felt it going in,” the captain said. “I have been working on them throughout the week. The lads said: ‘This is your moment, go and take it.’ Thankfully, I did.”
Cue delirium in the away end, a noise that was repeated at full-time, even drowning out the boos of the few home supporters that stayed.
